Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer representing four condemned-to-death narcotics offenders in Jakarta, says that the death penalty is in contradiction of the 1945 constitution, given that the constitution guarantees the right each citizen to live his life.

Todung Mulya Lubis.

Additionally, he says that the relevant law, Number 22 of 1997 on Narcotics, is opposed to the philosophy of the Indonesian criminal justice system, that is, that the primary purpose of punishment is the rehabilitation of offenders and their reintegration into society.

What's more, he says, it often occurs that after executions have been carried out new evidence is found which casts doubt on the validity of the original convictions.

He also argues that those crimes which are punishable by death, such as murder and drug trafficking, have experienced increases in rates of occurrence, proving that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent.

Finally he suggested that the worldwide trend was against the Indonesian position: 88 states had abolished the death penalty, 11 had reserved the penalty for uncommon crimes such as treason, and 30 countries had placed a moratorium on any further death sentences. Indonesia was one of 68 nations which still regularly employed state-sanctioned killing, he said. kompas

90 Comments on “Capital Punishment”

Naa!! Kill those drug dealers. They are the middle persons between the suppliers and users! The tax money can be better used for other things than rehabilitating these scum bags. They ruin lives and families in bigger scale. Scum bags!!

He also argues that those crimes which are punishable by death, such as murder and drug trafficking, have experienced increases in rates of occurrence, proving that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent.

They punish people everywhere else, in Yogyakarta, Banda Aceh (of course, they are capitals), but also in the Desa, right down to the RT/RW. Friends, if you have crime, you have punishment; Dostoyevksky taught us that.

Friends, you are my Indonesian brothers and sisters, and for that I respect you, but honestly sometimes you are so simple minded !

Although I have to admit. The lawyer in the photo above, ‘Todong’ Mulya Lubis, looks like he’s been trying really hard to take a dump for the last day and a half and is really pissed off, even a little sad, about it.

True C.P is a primitive behaviour, but the crimes hey committed are primitive too, so why bother. 🙂
Let bad people dies and let the good ones live. If you try to mix them again, you’ll find out the good ones will died.

Drug dealers are among the most useful people in Indonesia! Thanks to them many useless people die every day. Why arresting them? They force nobody. If you are stupid enough to buy their stuff it’s your problem. We need intelligent people to save this country. Let the others dying by overdoses.

That’s pretty harsh. A lot of the time they prey off frustrated, disappointed, and uneducated people in the cities.

Think 21-year old from the Desa who’s dreams of a life in Jakarta have dissolved into a life of being a full-time tukang parkir.

Back at the 6-man-to-a-bedroom kos some Preman just out of jail offers him a free first-time hit, telling him “nga apa, kok”. The 21-year old hasn’t had the anti drug education others have had, only to be told from a government that lies about so many other things that ‘narkoba is BAD.’

When the bad mind and behaviour drugged people all died we should have more space to live and breath then we should take those drug dealers out of business then we take all their wealth as ours and we could live in prosperity.

They will die anyway. 🙂

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Some drugs arent bad because they’re used in medication, but those bad people made the highly stricted medication available anywhere.
If I’m the law, I’ll they be penalted with all their drugs injected to them, this is more civilized punishment because this is their things.
And they’ll die softly, and fell like flying high to heaven. 🙂

But sure, what you see is what you get, you see your friends used it, you’re being seduced and even challenged to taste it, the rest is, you need it, always.

But sure mentality plays a role, no means to be boast, but me, I’ve been seduced and challenged many times, beers, drugs and even only cigarettes, its all junks.
I know what best for me, 4 sehat 5 sempurna, I love milk badly. 😀
And I have a ‘prinsip’, if anyone really seriously forced me to drug/beer, they’re next to graveyard, because I got that they’re trying to kill me and rob me in one.
Simple.

Capital punishment is still necessary these days, especially if we care more about the victims rather than the culprits of the crimes.

Achmad Sudarsono: So are you suggesting that the fault lies on the society in general and our social systems for allowing drug trafficking to flourish? So what can be done to change all that and curb drug trafficking? Or more precisely who should do it, as our government seemed preoccupied with other things and unable to take decisive actions on this matter? What can we as individuals do to help?

Btw, it’s nice to finally read one of your more serious posts. Whatever happened to Sava Da Flava, Flicka Flicka, etc etc. Not that we missed it though. 😀

Heroin addiction and what it does is too serious to make stupid comments.

It’s something that needs very thorough, pragmatic, sharp thinking on the politics, ethics, economics, and administration of the problem. Words chosen carefully.

* The problem with the death penalty: who’s gonna get it ? It ain’t gonna be the big daddy Dalang sittin’ up in Medan, Bekasih, or Mabes TNI or Polri. It’ll probably be some sort of scumbag preman boss.

Does it work in developing countries like Indonesia ? We need case studies from successful campaigns in places like Brazil, Russia, South Africa (the townships are developing countries), India etc. Ie does the death penalty impose an unacceptable cost on potential industry entrants ?

Sadly, from what we know about law enforcement in Indonesia – think Trisakti Tragedy, the officers will just kick it downstairs so some dumb f–ck up takes the flak while they keep partying, and their kid keeps inviting buddies to bliss to drop tabs of ‘e’.

* Economics of the industry legalizing it might not work here either because of the weak regulation in the pharmaceuticals industry elsewhere. In other words, legal substances aren’t necessary controlled either because of copyright infringement, copy cat products, people just ignoring the law.

*Politics politically impossible to legalize it. Can you imagine what the PKS would say ?

* Other successes in law enforcement have been: busting JI. This worked because of very strong career and financial incentives for an elite cadre of officers who had political backing at the highest level. Fortunately, that now exists for drug enforcement (because so many rich Jakarta brats have embarrassed their Golkar, TNI, you-name-it, elite parents).

Maybe the answer is an elite force assigned to find the biggest drug dealers and make an example of them. Maybe the Petrus solution is the only answer.

I don’t pretend to have the answers, I just know it makes my blood boil to see those poor kampung kids get lured into heroin addictions while Tomy Winata’s playing golf with 3-star generals.

Achmad.

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P.S.

Hassan, sorry – forgot to answer your question.

Hard to say where the fault lies. Alot of these problems come from cities getting bigger, richer, and traditional cultures breaking down with a temporary vacuum in their place. What’s society in Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, anyway ?

I really suspect the real surge in the drug trade came with the post-Suharto fragmentation of power. Suddenly, the cliche goes, you had Suhartos all over Indonesia in the years after ’98. Call Babe, the Old Man, Suharto, what you will: but vice, nastiness, and corruption, tended to be centralised, and thus, ironically, easier to regulate.

(BTW: just making a value-free observation about pluses and minuses – not saying we should go back to the New Order).

If you may recall, Indonesia already has its own “capital punishment’. It’s even scarier than the capital punishment itself. Remember we keep hearing news about people were stoned to death or beaten up to death by this large group of people because they stole a chicken or any other ‘silly’ stuff (like underwear, candy etc).

Even more ‘silly’ stuff happens quite often when a burgler yelled “maling” to the victim, and the victim died later on because a group of people in the neighbourhood thought that the victim was the criminal and they burned him down.

But, as we know, this doesn’t teach all those criminals to stop doing the wrong thing.

So, I agree with the capital punishment that is backed up by a fair and just trial.

Capital punishment is still necessary these days, especially if we care more about the victims rather than the culprits of the crimes.

What do you expect from capital punishment in regard to the victims? When death penalty is executed, how will the victims benefit from it? Will murder victims resurrect? And will heroin addicts get rid of their addiction?

In regard to the drug trade death penalty is not a deterrent as drugrunners, rather than the druglords, are most at risk of facing death penalty.
For some reason the myth of the deterrent effect of death penalty is very persistent and difficult to eradicate.

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Achmad,

Does it work in developing countries like Indonesia ? We need case studies from successful campaigns in places like Brazil, Russia, South Africa (the townships are developing countries), India etc. Ie does the death penalty impose an unacceptable cost on potential industry entrants ?

Are you mentioning death penalty campaigns or anti-heroin campaigns? I ask this this because a country like Brasil hasn’t used death penalty since 1889.

What do you expect from capital punishment in regard to the victims? When death penalty is executed, how will the victims benefit from it? Will murder victims resurrect? And will heroin addicts get rid of their addiction?

True that the victims will not gain any benefit.

In regard to the drug trade death penalty is not a deterrent as drugrunners, rather than the druglords, are most at risk of facing death penalty.

I think death penalty is a deterrent but only if it is applied consistently, Singapore applied this penalty consistently, if one is a drug runner, he would choose a country where there is no death penalty rather than one that does like Singapore.

I think Brazil dropped it in 1979, not 1879 – thus plenty of time to cross-check.

Dimp, the death penalty tends to only get ‘mules’ – ie stooges and carrier pigeons. We need more evidence of the efficacy of the death penalty. It’s hard to say with Singapore because the whole chain of law enforcement’s much tighter than here. You can’t point to any particular link, although they do like to claim that it justifies banning chewing gum and that sort of thing.

Dimp, the death penalty tends to only get ‘mules’ – ie stooges and carrier pigeons.

Well, if you are willing to be mules, then you have to accept that there are consequences.

You can’t point to any particular link, although they do like to claim that it justifies banning chewing gum and that sort of thing.

Don’t quite understand what your point here, but I think Singapore has stopped banning chewing gum, I think I saw a chewing gum ad in a Singapore magazine. Still I don’t think the banning of chewing gum relates to this topic.

See why they’re addicted to drugs? Because its plenty everywhere.
If the selling chain is broken then we’ll see no drugs everywhere than only in hospitals.

Drug dealers is a very big crime, they make people addicted ’till death while making them poor and stealing (the drugs could make the addicted steal money only to buy it if they dont have money)

The drug degenerate the cells, nerves, brain thus making people stupid, short thinking, weak body and you know the rest, the drug could kill a country.

I called it epidemic. And how to manage the epidemic? Treat the victims, break the virus’s (Drug dealers) life chain, create the vaccine (People’s boost in mentality, spirituality and morality) and dont forget the one, hygiene and sterilization (Capitol Punishment) to ensure that the virus never exist here (The virus have brain though, so they could think not to infected in place they’re assuranced to death).

Dont be so permissive, because your family could be the next victims”¦

This is a question that actually I have been thinking, if “drug-users” are victims, then why are they being punished by law?

I think the Indonesian government need to educate the people regarding drugs. At the moment I don’t think drug users have anywhere to go to, they are being persecuted, if they want to quit their bad behaviour the government need to give support.

I agree that we need to cut the chains, but we also need to eliminate the sources as well, at the moment the “capital” punishments haven’t reached the so called “drug lords”, I think we need to question why these “drug lords” can run wild in Indonesia? Although we all probably know the answer to this already.

Interesting discussion.
Just asking if chief gangsters must be punished. Yes.
By death penalty? No. Giving death is just another crime.
No victim resurrection, no-one educated –some quickly executed (Tibo etc.), some “never” (Amrozi cs).
Drugs make some blush: weapons make other laugh.
Petrus and other criminal moves will never solve anything.
EDUCATION must be the key, I mean, some consistant distance taken from blatant ignorance.
Deterrent? For me, stupidity, dishonesty & lie are deterrent against the basics of life.
We always go back to the same old tune : justice & equality for ALL, not only for CEOs & their political pet-monsters.
A rich drug addict is no problem: the poor just get on the nerves of the owners (of the world).
What about the dengue fever and its victims? Viruses and druglords are beyond the reach of our ridiculous petty little wills —

I agree that we need to cut the chains, but we also need to eliminate the sources as well, at the moment the “capital” punishments haven’t reached the so called “drug lords”, I think we need to question why these “drug lords” can run wild in Indonesia? Although we all probably know the answer to this already.

If no one wanna be drug dealers because they know the punishment is, then there no drug dealers…

Yes we should eliminated the lords, see the news last year, about the ‘penggebrekan’ drug factory.
But that’s not enough if there’re drug dealers spreading wild, because most of the drugs have been distributed to them.

Dude, depends what you mean by scientific. What about ‘thorough’, ‘reasonable’, or ‘acceptable levels of proof and reasoning’ ?

By scientific evidence I mean: evidence which is the product of thorough research and is based on -to use your words- ‘acceptable levels of proof and reasoning’. Whatever you want to call it, there is no evidence.

The state still reserves the right to kill, after all.

What gave the state the right to kill other people then? When an individual doesn’t have the right to kill other people, why should the state have this right then? The state consists out of persons, who are not allowed to kill being as an individual but only can can kill as a collective? That makes no sense at all.
When it is not allowed to kill another human being, this should also apply to the state. Killing people, to show that killing people is wrong is an out-of-date idea and therefore belongs in the rubbish-bin.